The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Michael Keyton (from Texas where the kine are kind.)

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, David Fowler wrote:

> At 12:55 pm 10/11/97, Randy K. Schwartz wrote:> >RE: David Fowler's aside:> >> >>NOTE 2 I speak from personal experience. Arthur Mee's Children's> >>Encyclopedia, a standard reference for my generation, had a similar though> >>less subtle set of variations of an extract from Thomas Gray's Elegy in a> >>Country Churchyard:...>> > The words are correct, but the title is **Elegy Written in a> >Country Church-yard**.>> I took the verse in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, which has> 'Churchyard'; I'll check, and point it out to the Press if it's incorrect.> On the other hand, they did have 'ploughman'!> I remembered it as 'The lowing herd winds slowly...' and think that is how> it is usually quoted. I would even go so far as to say Gray's version is> ungrammatical. Perhaps, for some reason, he wanted to avoid the sibilant> winds-slow, but I can't see why.>> But if anyone can help with my final cri de coeur: "CHECK! Am I> mis-remembering? I've found a copy of the Encyclopedia, but haven't yet> found this item in it. Has anybody out there ever come across it?" then> I'd be eternally grateful!>> David Fowler>> PS I hope that too many members of the list arem't too upset by the> diversion that I seem to have started. I'm quite enjoying it.>